Judy Juanita’s book from Willow Books

FEATURED TITLE:

California Fever Dream: A Memoir

For adult readers

The writer in these narrative non-fiction essays loves her native California and writes with fondness of family, music, and the black church. After being in the Black Panther Party in its infancy, she leaves California in early adulthood, returning much later. This early radicalism is central to the book: how it develops and permeates an entire life, how it fragments, and how it finally evolves. The migration of blacks from the South to the Bay Area, her abortion in the midst of the 1960s, and her own post-radicalism are thematic. Most of the essays range from 3-6 pages, with three lengthy ones being ten to 24 pages. Many of these essays appeared online in the Weeklings, where Judy Juanita was a contributing editor from 2016-2019.